


I just want to know you better now

by fuckup



Series: The Sleeping Sanguinary AU [2]
Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Adopted Siblings, Embedded Images, Jace is a Fray, M/M, alternative universe, shadowhunters who text
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12880629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckup/pseuds/fuckup
Summary: “You realise I brought you heresix hoursago.” Isabelle says, because apparently Alec’s sistercan nothelp herself.“And then you went to the bathroom for five hours and fifty minutes.” Jace says smoothly, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you should really rethink your diet. More roughage.”AKA the one where Jace Fray meets the Lightwoods for the first time, takes a shine to Alec and a snark to Isabelle, and it all happens to Taylor Swift's 'Everything Has Changed'.





	I just want to know you better now

**Author's Note:**

> This is second in **The Sleeping Sanguinary AU** in terms of writing, although chronologically its before 'I just came to say hello', which serves as kind of fucked up prologue to the series. This fic here covers Jace's very first meeting with the Lightwoods - especially Alec. 
> 
> But basically: 'That one universe where Valentine took a slightly more legal route to making Jace his adopted son. Which leads to Jocelyn stealing more than one child from Valentine and 'The name's Fray. Jace Fray.' Also, Jalec.'
> 
> Fair warnings:  
> 1) I'm a big fan of playing with 'in media res', especially for this series.  
> 2) I wrote this with a slight 'I need to get over my perfectionism so I'm not editing this more than I full out need to' kind of vibe.  
> 3) It takes place in the modern day, rather than 10 years ago because... it was more fun to write, tbh.  
> 4) All of the characters are at least slightly different from what I remember from canon, due to them having different backgrounds. The biggest difference is obviously with Jace, who had a (mostly) totally different upbringing than in canon, seeing as he was raised as a Mundane by Jocelyn with Clary as his sister, and Simon as a best friend. 
> 
> Title & lyrics taken from 'Everything Has Changed' by Taylor Swift & Ed Sheeran.

** JACE **

**& all my walls stood tall, painted blue.**

He doesn’t know what’s happening, and it’s making him feel tense and edgy, like a clockwork toy that’s being wound and wound, no end in sight, no where left to go.

The girl - Isabelle Lightwood, who wants the world to think she thinks a lot of herself, that’s for sure - is keen that they should go back to her home. The ‘Institute’, which sure, doesn’t sound like something out of every one of Lewis’s geekiest TV shows, comics, tv shows, etc. 

“I’ll take ‘Crazy Girl Says What’ for 100, Alex.” 

An old reference, but a goodie. No reason Isabelle should look at him with - if this is even possible - even more astonishment. “You know Alec?” 

Somehow, this girl makes more sense when she’s lassoing a whip around than she is in a half-way regular conversation. “’Know your meme’, Diana Prince.” Jace tells her, and snaps a discreet picture of her to send to Squad Group Text. Clary will want to draw her, Simon will want to do shit Jace doesn’t even want to think about with her, and Jace just wants a record of her. “Just fucking google it.”

“What are you even saying?” She sounds frustrated, and makes to grab him by the arm; Jace slides away from her grip with the same ease he does everything. She doesn’t even come close to touching him. “You shouldn’t be able to move that fast, you shouldn’t have been able to do anything you just did! This is what I’m saying!” 

“And this,” Jace says, turning away from her and flipping her the bird over his shoulder, “Is what I’m saying.” 

“How can you not want to know what you just did?” She shouts down the alley after him. If she was younger, Jace is thinking she’d accompany it with a stomp of her impractical heeled boots. “How can you _kill a demon_ you shouldn’t even be able to SEE and just walk away like that?” 

“Swag.” He calls back over his shoulder, and grabs on to the nearest fire escape, hitching up on to it and swinging himself up on to the next level, legs first.

“YOU ARE PROVING MY POINT.”

Like fuck he is. 

When he’s on the roof, Jace _runs_. He needs this energy coiling in him _out_ , and this is how to do it. Running and leaping and flipping his way across walls and roof-tops, running with the wind like it’s got no hope of holding him back. Nobody ever does. He’s been Varsity in Track and gymnastics since he was a freshman, and that’s nothing. He could’ve tried for the Olympics in either of them way back when, if his mom hadn’t panicked that it’d bring attention to their family that would mean their Dad could track the three of them down. It hadn’t come as a great surprise she’d taken that tack; his and Clary’s instagrams are both set to private, for fuck’s sake. 

When he stops, he does it to take a few more photos. Mostly it’s shots of the skyline for Ris. His mom knows he’s into free-running and Parkour, but she approves of it much less than Clary does, who basically uses and abuses it for a new perspective for her art. In that way, his photography serves a dual purpose: inspiration for his sister, and as a small offer of artiness to his mom. If he coaches what he does like it’s really about getting the perfect shot, it’s easier for them both. Obviously, she doesn’t need to see most of the POV videos he takes with his GoPro.

“I can do this all day.” Isabelle’s voice comes from behind him, not even sounding out of breath. Just triumphant, like she really does think she’s proven some kind of point. “Can you say there’s anyone else you know who can keep up with you like I just did?” 

He glances behind himself, at her. He’s not going to admit it to her, but he’s a little impressed. Fighting a ‘demon’ together is one thing. Keeping up with him when he doesn’t want to be caught is something else. 

“You can’t, can you?” She says, seizing on his silence, stepping closer to him, every inch the fierce warrior princess. Too bad that’s a thousand times more Simon’s type than his, or they could’ve had something there. “You’re adopted, or an only child and your parents are deserters-”

Jace laughs, and it sounds like glass crunching underfoot. “Insulting my parents. Nice. Really going to get me to come with you. Are you taking Psychology 101, or do you just have a way with people?” 

He’s not an only child, but this girl has no reason to know about Clary. She barely has reason to know about Jace. So demons exist now, and he can see them. He doesn’t need this girl to tell him about any of it. He doesn’t need anyone other than the small family unit they’re carved out for themselves. 

“We have weapons you could use.” 

Jace pauses in the act of sliding of the side of the building. She tosses her hair, smug as Clary when he and Lewis finally gave up the ghost and admitted they had too much in common to not be friends, too. “Shortswords, guisarmes, axes, crossbows, broadswords, whips, chakrams, rapiers.” She doesn’t trail off, but continues listing off melee and ranged weapons both, each one all the more tempting for the precise way she pronounces it, like each weapon is a friend from whom she has no secrets.

She has him, and they both know it. “Lead the way, Lightwood.”

She does, with a distinct skip in her step.

———————

**  
** ALEC  


**all I know is a simple name,  
& everything has changed.**

“Hello.” Alec says, voice full of wariness, to the sinewy _Runeless_ blond boy testing the balance of a sword in his training room. Despite her text, Izzy isn’t around. This is both bad and terrible. The lack of so much as a Voyance on the boy’s dominant hand is making Alec increasingly alarmed that Izzy has crossed the uncrossable line and brought a Mundane into the Institute.

Then the boy turns and _looks_ at Alec, and Alec immediately feels like the sun wants to swallow him whole. All his fears about Izzy’s new find being a Mundane vanish, and a few other ones crop up in their place. He can’t be a Mundane with eyes like that. Whatever he is, there’s magic in him. He doesn’t menace towards the other boy, which Izzy would call progress. If Izzy was _here_.

“Where’s Isabelle?” He can’t help but sound demanding. This person is in his _house_ , holding one of the Institute's own longswords. There’s no sign of a fight, Izzy could have left of her own violation and he’s confident that she can handle herself alone against any rogue Downworlder, even a lesser Demon, but that doesn’t change him wanting to know _where his sister is_.

“Bathroom break.” His voice - it’s almost as much of a shock as his eyes are. Alec is distantly grateful that he’s too focused on on Isabelle to properly concern himself about how impossibly good-looking this boy is.

“My sister doesn’t take bathroom breaks.” A split-second after he says it, Alec knows how stupid a thing that is to say, especially to someone who looks like they could be a fashion model (is Izzy dating a model now?), if models were also definite athletes. He still doesn’t back down. Isabelle likes to uphold the illusion that she never needs to go the toilet, and she would definitely not give that up in front of a new guy, definitely not one as attractive as this one.

He’s expecting the boy to laugh at him for what sounds - on the face of it - like a ridiculous statement, or make some kind of excuse. But actually, he nods, like he understands this level of concern. “She said freshen up.”

It’s a minuscule detail, but it makes Alec relaxes. For about another two seconds. Then he becomes crushingly aware that he’s alone with this devastatingly attractive boy, who is quite possibly his sister’s new boyfriend, which is _great_ , and since when did Izzy’s taste match up with his? She’s never gone for blonds before… Although, his hair is more golden than normal blond, and with a face that is just the right amount of angular, long eyelashes and those eyes.... maybe Izzy is making an exception to her normal type. Alec is sure he would, as well.

He wants to cross his arms over his chest, but that seems like a move that screams 'I'm nervous because of how hot you are', so he clenches his hands into fists, instead. Maybe that will look like he's pissed off about him (possibly maybe) dating his sister instead. Alec's been told before that he has a face that suggests he's constantly annoyed (which isn't true... he's only mostly annoyed, and he wouldn't have to be if he wasn't so worried about Izzy being reckless so much). 

Though... If she's dating the golden-eyed boy, at least that means she's probably no longer dating Meliorn. He can't be another Fae. His ears aren't pointed, although he does kind of have the look of loftiness they all do. Maybe he's a Warlock? His gold eyes could be his Warlock Mark... it'd be among the most subtle that he's seen, but he could be hiding the extremes of it. 

Alec draws a breath in through his nose, trying to be subtle about it. Whoever this boy is, they're someone in Isabelle's life now; contrary to what their father would like to think, she doesn't bring just anyone home. He has to just go for it. "I'm Alec."

“Jace.” The golden-eyed boy says, and there’s something offhand about the way he says that, something almost dismissive about the way his eyes skip over Alec and right back to the sword in his hand. 

It’s a familiar reaction, Alec being passed over for literally anything else. And yet, with a small amount of surprise and not so little curiosity, Alec realises that he doesn’t feel slighted by Jace. He can’t. Not with the way Jace is with this sword, this perfectly ordinary sword, looking at it with a kind of intent reverence, holding it like it’s so precious that it can only be his.

“Do you want me to show you some sword-based exercises?” Alec doesn’t know why he’s offering this, not quite. A little it’s a way of narrowing down what this boy _is_ , but it’s also - trying. For what, he isn’t quite sure. Izzy would call it a miracle, and she wouldn’t be entirely joking. 

Jace’s eyes fasten on his, sharp and shining, pulling Alec in and making his limbs go loose with a spreading warmth. All he says is “Sure” but it feels like it might mean “Thank you.”

———————

** JACE **

****

****

**all i know is we said hello,  
so dust off your highest hopes.**

Alec isn’t like Isabelle. That much is clear to Jace as soon as the words ‘my sister doesn’t take bathroom breaks’ come out of his mouth. Physically, they look alike. Not as much as Clary and their mom do, but the resemblance between them is still strong. Physically. As far as personality goes, Jace - who is, cards on the table, more interested in the weapons than Alec himself - has already noticed five key differences, and they’ve not even been training together long.

It helps that Alec doesn’t seem keen on talking. He suggests a different sword cut for Jace to try every couple of minutes, but that’s essentially it. He doesn’t seem unnerved, either. At least not the kind of unnerved that would make Jace think he’s intimidated by him, which happens more often that it doesn’t. 

Unlike Clary, who has a natural affinity for being with people, or Lewis, who can connect with anyone as long as they have a geeky bone in their body, Jace has to make a concentrated effort to talk to people like he wants to know them. Mostly, he doesn’t bother. He’s not interested in having friends outside of the ones he has, and even less interested in strengthening loose ‘works out with sometimes’ friendships into something that his mom would say was ‘real.’

Alec is… different. Even if Lightwood has filled him in more than Jace thinks she has, Alec must still have questions. But he doesn’t ask them, doesn’t comment on how quickly Jace is picking the different cuts up, or try to ‘make conversation’. He just offers up help, one time after another, not pushing at Jace for information he straight up doesn’t have, or trying to wheedle it from him, either. It’s surprisingly nice.

Except from the way that Alec is steadfastly refusing to so much as readjust Jace’s grip, which is kind of weird. Jace does a little experiment on that, just holding the sword in a way he knows is wrong by how awkwardly it fits him, just to see if Alec will manually adjust him. He doesn’t the first time, or the second. Just points it out in a way that ultimately gets the point across, but is still more roundabout than just showing what he meant would be, and moves on.

It could be his training style. It could be something else.

A little bored with practising something he’s sure he thousand per centain has a handle on, Jace decides to do another little experiment.

“So, are you seeing anyone?”

The choking noise that Alec makes is strangely gratifying. “ _No._ ” 

Jace swings his sword in hand, flipping it up and around in a trick that is really only minor levels of cool but does, he’s sure, look major levels of cool since he’s the one doing it. “No?” 

“ _No._ ” It’s the same one word, but he manages to even even more flustered on the second go around. Jace is unsurprised to sense Alec stepping away from him.

“To busy fighting demons?” It’s a casual suggestion, meant to see what Alec reacts with, but Jace is mildly wondering if it’s also true. He has no real frame of reference for how time-consuming fighting demons is, but if he goes by how intensive sports training can be - especially professional sports training - then it could be true.

Alec hesitates for too long for that. “Yes. Why are you asking?” He stumbles a little, now. “I mean, why do you care?” 

“Just wondering what the time situation is for holding down a relationship.” It’s a dick move to put it like that. Jace knows that, and does it anyway. That is his MO.

“If you want to know if my sister has time to date someone-”

“Your sister.” Jace cuts him off, and turns around to look at him, drive the message in. He doesn’t need Alec refusing to train with him again because he thinks he has a thing for Isabelle. “Is not my type.”

Alec blinks at him rapidly, as if the thought of Isabelle not being anyone type is too strange for words. It has the side-effect of making Jace acutely aware of Alec’s eyes, which are movie star dark blue framed with coal black lashes. 

Alec, Jace notices suddenly, is ‘could be famous’ levels of attractive. Like Isabelle, like Jace himself. Is that a Nephilim trait?

Jace realises he’s entertaining the idea that Lightwood is right, and he is a Shadowhunter. Probably through his asshole dad, since he can no more imagine his mom fighting demons than he can Rissa genuinely being able to play the piano.

“Can Shadowhunters who marry a normal woman and have children with them return to the fold if they leave them?” Jace asks abruptly, going cold at the thought. He’s thinking of his father, of the possibility that him wanting to play with weaponry is putting Rissa and his mom in danger. 

“I don’t think so.” Alec says slowly. “The law is hard, but it is the law… There isn’t precedent for Shadowhunters returning to our world once they’ve left… Most of us don’t leave at all… We’re born to be Shadowhunters, and we die as them, too.” His eyes focus on Jace again, and he looks actually concerned. Like fifteen minutes alone showing him how to swing a sword is enough to make him care about Jace. “I haven’t heard about anyone like that. It would be a big deal, if it happened. And they’d bring their children with them. They wouldn’t just leave them with their Mundane parent.” He says that like it’s meant to be reassuring, when all Jace can think about is how worried his mom has always been that their dad would track the three of them down.

“What if the children wanted to stay with their Mundane parent?” Jace asks, deciding as he says it that in his retelling of this to Clary he’s going to leave out that their mom apparently counts as ‘Mundane’. Jace doesn’t like it, but Clary would get stuck on it hard. 

“Shadowhunter blood dominates.” Alec says, like it’s that simple. He seems to have chilled out, now Jace is no longer talking to him about relationships. “Even after the Shadowhunter parent has left the Clave, someone would be sent every six years to ask any children if they wanted to come be trained as one of us.” 

“Nobody ever came knocking on our door.” Jace says, and considers if he should have kept that thought to himself when he notices Alec give a little start.

“There are a few ways to determine if someone is a Shadowhunter.” Alec says, and Jace focuses his attention back on Alec, who seems a little distant, almost reluctant. He seems to notice that Jace has fixed his eyes on him, and coughs, taking another step away from him, failing utterly at making it look natural. “You might not be a Shadowhunter… You can’t be a Mundane. Not when you have eyes like that.”

Jace lifts a single eyebrow; a skill that has Lewis permanently jealous, thereby ensuring Jace will never, ever tell him he purposefully learnt it, rather than being able to do it naturally, as he’s led him to believe. “What about my eyes?”

A nice welcome back to the Alec from a minute ago, who seems torn between folding in on himself and embracing the certainty that had been in his voice when he’d stated Jace can’t be a Mundane. Jace kind of expects that if he keeps staring at Alec, the first thing will happen, but turns out, it’s the other way around. The longer Jace looks at him, the more determined Alec seems to be to seem unaffected, and when he speaks, his voice is nearly harsh. “They’re dark gold in the light. Mundanes don’t have eyes like that. You could be a Warlock, or a part Fae or-”

“Just that gorgeous.” Jace finishes for him, playing at nonchalance so well because, other than Clary and Simon, it’s basically his best friend.

“No.” Alec says, right away, and _of course_ Jace has to leap on that.

“You don’t think I’m stunningly attractive.” He says it like it’s a fact, like it’s a possibility that literally anyone could look at him and think him anything but a God come to life. 

“Your eyes have nothing to do with you being attractive.” Alec says, and then looks - mortified, genuinely mortified, and clears more space between them than ever before, not even trying to pretend like he’s not. “Not that you’re attractive. Or unattractive. Or that I’d notice, either way.”

Something flickers through Jace, not quite empathy, but not pity, either. Just something. He doesn’t try and chase what the emotion is, but he does back off, figuratively, and a little bit literally. “Everyone thinks I’m attractive, I wouldn’t worry about it. Do you have any broadswords I could try?”

———————

** ALEC **

**all i know is new found grace.**

Alec is going to _kill_ his sister. He started to get suspicious this was some kind of set-up when he realised he’d been helping Jace for going on fifteen minutes, and there was no sign of Isabelle returning. Just a text message from her blithely declaring she was going to have a ‘me day’. He should have realised sooner, except helping Jace is strangely absorbing. He’s so interested in what Alec is helping him with that Alec has basically forgotten about being nervous. That changes briefly, when Jace starts talking about _’if he’s seeing someone’_ and _’his eyes’_ , but then he seems to lose interest in it, and they’re back to normal.

They have a normal. The two of them. Alec oscillates back and forth from being painfully aware that he’s getting on incredibly easily with someone who isn’t part of the family, someone who is _a really beautiful boy_ , and being so caught up in showing Jace different weaponry that he forgets to worry about anything else.

He doesn’t realise, fully realise, how bizarre all of this is, until Jace wants to try out a recurved bow and arrow, and Alec automatically hands over his own. He can’t even dwell on it too long, because the truth is that Jace is _good_. Not as good as Alec, and a far cry from Isabelle, but for someone who he says he hasn’t so much as done fencing before and who _Izzy_ says helped her kill a demon, he’s amazing. He has to be a Shadowhunter. 

Despite Jace’s earlier questions strongly indicating that he thinks only his dad used to be one of them, if that, Alec really wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s a full Shadowhunter. When Jace insists on having a go at throwing knives and manages to stick one to the target at the first try, Alec is sure that Jace has to be one of them. When Jace notices the high wooden beams in the training room, gracefully climbs up to balance on one of them without Alec’s tacit approval, he’s absolutely positive that Jace was born to be a Shadowhunter. When Jace falls into a perfect roll from the balance beams, no hesitation, with a level of skill that Alec thinks he'd be able to replicate to Expert level, he briefly forgets Jace was Mundane raised. 

“We have a little brother, too. Max.” Alec is telling Jace, as the two of them move through the Armoury, Jace picking up or pointing at certain weapon, and Alec giving him a brief rundown on its name, origin and main uses. It’s something that is definitely more Izzy’s territory than his - she can name obscure weapons Alec doesn’t think even Hodge knows, and use them, as well - but Jace doesn’t seem to mind his spots in knowledge, even when the spots become more like holes. “He’s at Idris right now, with our mom and dad.”

“Idris?”

“Every Shadowhunter’s home country.” Alec says promptly, and that side-tracks them for another ten minutes. Alec thinks that he should probably be nervous that Jace _isn’t_ a Shadowhunter born, and even if he is, he’s not beholden to the rules of the Clave, and that he should stop talking so freely about Shadowhunter business. And then the fact that he’s not nervous _makes_ him nervous, a pop of an echo of nerves.

Which is how they end up sitting on one of the high beams in the Training room, lights dimmed to dark, legs swinging, rain pattering on the window panes. “If you’re a Shadowhunter-”

“Which you’re 98% sure I am.” Jace interrupts him lazily, utterly unrepentant when Alec knocks his leg against his as a mild warning to _behave_.

“Which I’m 98% sure you are already, but I _could be wrong_.”

“Wrong a lot, are you?”

Alec doesn’t even bother giving a proper response to that one, just throws him an exasperated look and the accompanying, “ _Jace_.”

“ _Alec_.” He mocks, and then his mouth tugs into a smirk that simultaneously takes any sting out of his tone, and adds a dizzying feel of _want_ to Alec’s belly. 

He looks away, his own mouth pressed together in a tight line, grateful once again that the dark will hide the warmth creeping up the back of his neck.

“Tell me.” There’s nothing new in Jace’s voice, except he says it a little quieter than Alec might have expected. What should take Alec by surprise, but kind of doesn’t, is the way he taps his fingers up the back of Alec’s hand. “How we can be sure. I want to know.”

“There are a couple of ways.” Alec speaks in a determined rush, so he doesn’t have time to _think_ about what it means - or, more likely, _doesn’t_ mean - that Jace is touching him like that. “The easiest way is for you to hold a Witchlight. They don’t light up for anyone but people who have Shadowhunter blood.”

He expects for Jace’s hand to move away from his, to curve out into a palm for Alec to drop the stone into. If there’s one thing Izzy and Jace have in common, it’s that neither of them are patient. But Jace keeps his fingers where they are, tracing up to circle around Alec’s knuckles, and Alec will be on his way to dead if Jace ever touches his bare skin when he’s meant to be doing Shadowhunter work. 

Alec forces himself to lift his eyes up, to look over at Jace and - watch Jace be the one to drop his own eyes, pull his hand back, and act so completely like nothing even happened that Alec is left wondering if anything even _did_. “So, if I make the stone glow, I’m actually part of a super-human race, descending from the blood of an Angel, meant to fight demons and protect both Mundanes and Downworlders - who keep in line with the Accords - from everything, if it goes bump in the night, or not.” Jace says, and is up on his toes, navigating the narrow beams with a cool grace that gives off the impression Jace isn’t even aware he’s off the ground right now. “That’s it?” 

“That’s it.” Alec draws himself up to stand on the beam, as well. Less because it gets uncomfortable, sitting on thin pieces of wood, more because he feels like staying sitting would make think Jace think he was stuck in whatever moment had just happened between them. Didn’t happen. He completes the picture by leaping down on to the floor below, landing lightly on his feet and looking up at Jace, who is looking intently back at him.

“And if I’m a Shadowhunter?” 

Alec knows what almost all other Shadowhunters would say. He knows what he’s _meant_ to say, especially now, when the Mortal Cup is missing, and they need warriors more than ever. He even knows what Izzy would say, although in her case, he thinks it wouldn’t be because she doesn’t understand the bonds of family (not Izzy, never), but more because she doesn’t always think things through all the way to the end. He doesn’t say what he’s meant to say, and he doesn’t say it how he’s meant to, either. “You’d have to keep it quiet. _Very_ quiet. If you want to train with us, and you don’t want to leave your family, the Clave can’t know about you. No one can.”

———————

****

** JACE **

**'cause all I know is we said hello  
& your eyes look like coming home.**

Jace is comfortable balancing on high beams. He’s been doing it for as long as he can remember and, quite possibly, since even before that. The first several years of his life are a blur of emotions and fighting, of faces he knows and faces he doesn’t, of the sharpness of pain and the smell of blood. His memories only begin to crystallise into reality when he’s seven years old and living in Brooklyn, with his sister and their mom. Clary’s the same, more or less. Part and parcel of an abusive childhood for the both of them.

He thinks about it more than Rissa does, he’s almost sure of that. He shouldn’t be thinking about it now. He isn’t, entirely. It’s like the thoughts are there, and not there, and normally it makes him feel empty, like no one could understand him completely. Not his mom. Not Lewis. Not even Clary, who always adjusts to everything better than he does. 

Except right now there’s Alec, who instinctively, without Jace saying _anything_ but the occasional expression of affection for his sister, for their mom, even for Lewis, seems to get that Jace can’t just leave them, even for this. Even more than that, he gets that Jace can’t just leave _this_ behind here, either. What had he said? ‘No one can know in the Clave can know about you.’

“Except you.” Jace says, and he’s grateful that he sounds insouciant as fuck, like nothing can touch him, nothing can even come close. “And Lightwood.”

“I’m Lightwood, too.” Alec points out, which is so completely outside the point that it makes Jace roll his eyes.

“It fits her better.” He says, and executes a damn perfect fall from the highest beam. It’s even easier than it is in a Mundane gym, where there’s shorter distances and a mat to catch him if Armageddon shows itself in him messing up a landing. “I like Alec for you.” Jace continues, with every appearance of nonchalance, as he saunters over to stand directly in front of him. “And ‘Dirty Little Secret’ for me.”

It shows how far they’ve come in the last few hours, that a comment like that doesn’t make Alec blush, or even make a noise, but give him a long-suffering look. “I’m not putting you in my phone as that.”

“What makes you think you’re getting my number?” He says it casually, like the joke it’s (mostly) meant to be, and is pleased when Alec doesn’t even look like he doubts that Jace is joking. Jace hopes this means that Alec feels the same way about him. He’s sure he’s never liked anyone else this quickly, never looked at someone and felt like they understand the part of him he keeps moving, so no one can find it. Not like anyone else has even understood, when they’d looked for it.

He doesn’t blame Alec for ignoring that last comment, especially not when he’s pulling from his pocket a flat grey stone, one that glows like pearls in his hands. “I’m going to turn it off.” Alec says calmly, and it winks out, like his voice is a trigger. Jace holds his palm out for it, and Alec hesitates, his fingers curling tighter around it rather than letting it drop. “You should wait until you’re home to try it out.”

It’s a sign of the respect he feels for Alec, that he doesn’t give a snarky reply to that. “Why’s that?”

“Witchlights respond to the will of a Shadowhunter, not just their touch. It’s possible another Shadowhunter could light the Witchlight for you when you touch it, and we couldn’t be sure it’s you.” He says it in such a level voice, that it takes a moment for Jace to catch on to what Alec is actually saying: he’s worried that he’ll want Jace to be a Shadowhunter badly enough that he’ll will the Witchlight into lighting up on Jace’s behalf.

Jace decides against directly addressing that part of it. “So we wouldn’t be 100% sure.”

Alec looks a little awkward, as he goes to lower the Witchlight and put it back into his pocket, like he hadn’t thought of that.

Quick as fire, Jace reaches out and grasps hold of Alec’s hand, pressing the base of his thumb against the Witchlight and willing it to light up.

It bursts to life between them like starshine, but it’s no longer the stone he’s looking at, but Alec, and the softer blue his eyes look in this white flash of light. “That’s 99%.”

———————

** ALEC **

****

****

**all i know is pouring rain,  
& everything has changed.**

It’s stupid. _Alec_ is stupid. He can’t go around wanting to kiss every pretty boy who holds his hand in order to light up a Witchlight. (Although, Alec argues with himself, it’s not as if any other boy has ever done - or is ever likely to do - that exact same thing. It’s definitely not as if Jace is just pretty. Calling Jace pretty, inner Alec chides, is much like saying Izzy isn’t the best cook).

“99%.” He makes himself agree, and presses his spare Witchlight into Jace’s hand, partly so that he can then take his hand away. “If we want the other one per cent, then-”

“You can rune me?”

“ _No._ ” Alec says sharply, his back straightening with the force of his refusal. “If I wasn’t _absolutely positive_ then applying a rune to you could turn you into a Forsaken. Even if you _are_ a Shadowhunter, you could still have a bad reaction. Going into shock would be the least of it. Even if everything seems to go fine, it doesn’t mean that it _will_. Negative reactions to an influx of angelic energies don’t happen right away, and I’m not qualified to treat you for that. Normally, a whole team of Shadowhunters are on stand by when someone gets their first Mark.”

Jace continues to look at him, as if he can change his mind by sheer force of will. Alec shakes his head, and says it again, with even more force behind it, “ _No._ I’m serious, Jace.”

“I want to be sure.” Jace says, although Alec has the feeling that Jace is already sure, and just wants to push the boundaries, and make things more difficult for them both. “So unless you’ve got some other way of proving it…” 

So that’s the circumstances under which Alec takes another boy to his bedroom for the first time.

If he thinks about it too much, it stops being Jace, and it starts being nerve-wrecking. And then he realises that it being _Jace_ is nerve-wracking in itself, not just the comfortable, familiar presence that part of his brain has tricked the rest of his brain into thinking.

It doesn’t help that Jace is blatantly interested in his bedroom, as if he’s expecting to be markedly different from his own room. With a weird twist in his stomach, Alec realises that it probably _is_ very different from what Jace is used to. It’s boring, by Shadowhunter standards. By a Mundane’s standards (even if that isn’t what Jace is, it’s what he was raised as), it must be astronomically boring. But all Jace says is “Nice picture.” Which could mean anything, but probably just means that Jace likes the photographs Alec has pinned up, of him and Iz and Max. There’s even one with their parents, but that’s not the one Jace is looking at.

Alec just has to keep pushing past that. That’s all. He goes over to his meticulously ordered bookcase, and his fingers light over the spine of the Grey Book. It’s worn down, but more from frequent use than age. It’s not his favourite copy of the Book - that honour unquestionably goes to the one in the Institute’s library - but it’s his, in his room, where no one but him and his siblings ever go.

He leaves the Grey Book for now, and takes out his copy of the Shadowhunter’s Codex, as well as one of the live practice steles Max is always leaving in his room, from when they practice making Runes together, and goes over to Jace, who has - of course - decided to make himself home on Alec’s bed. “Here.” Alec says, handing Jace one of Max’s steles, which looks longer than a regular stele, but that’s only because it’s straight and devoid of any markings or ornamental shapes, making it easier for a beginner to hold. “It’s a practice stele. If you’re not a Shadowhunter, you won’t even be able to make a line with it, let alone a full rune.”

Jace looks a little surprised; he wasn’t expecting to get his way, for which Alec is a little grateful. He doesn’t want to be too strict with Jace - that feels weird, and almost wrong - but he doesn’t want to be a pushover, either. “What changed your mind?”

“Nothing.” Alec says, and he’s undeniably a little pleased with himself for thinking of this. “You’re going to mark me.”

———————

** JACE **

****

****

**& all I feel in my stomach is butterflies, the beautiful kind,**

Jace thinks he’s sick at first. That’s the only explanation he’s got for the riot of _fluttering_ in his stomach. But sick suggested he’s scared, because there’s no way he’s actually _sick_. He doesn’t get sick. Broken bones, yes, but actually _sick_? It just doesn’t happen.

“Mark you?” He sounds fine. A little too nonchalant to be real, but otherwise, completely fine. Which is a relief, since it takes _effort_ in a way he never has before. His eyes keep drifting back to Alec’s hands, his arms. It’s probably nothing, but it feels like an intimate thing to do. Carving a rune into someone’s skin. Into Alec’s. 

He glances back up at Alec’s face, but the other boy isn’t looking at him anymore. His eyelashes are sweeping almost against his cheeks, as he flips through the book on his lap. Unlike Jace, he looks like he is genuinely relaxed about this. “Even if you do it wrong, it won’t hurt me.”

“I don’t see that being a problem.” Jace says, and something in his voice must catch Alec’s attention, because he stops looking through the book and over at Alec’s.

Fuck, ‘could be famous levels of attractive’ was really underselling it. Jace looks away first, and picks up where Alec left off, flicking through the pages, looking for a Rune to draw. On Alec. “My mom and sister are both artists. Not my kind of thing, but you learn the basics of drawing. Here.” He taps his fingers on one particular Rune, the one that declares ‘Friendship’ underneath it. “What does that one do?”

“No.”

Jace looks over at him, eyebrows raised. “Are you just so used to saying that it comes out automatically?” 

“It’s a permanent Rune.” Alec says hurriedly, like that’s that. Jace thinks he wouldn’t mind drawing a permanent Rune on Alec, especially one like ‘friendship’, but he’s not going to pursue it. Aside from anything else, he doesn’t want to look too eager. 

“Sure. You pick.”

Alec does, flicking back a few pages and pointing to a Rune at the bottom of the page, with identical swooping on both sides that makes it look like the beginning a Catherine’s Wheel. It’s labelled ‘Deflect/Block’. “Here. This is one of the easiest ones to draw, and if you do it right, you’ll be able to see what happens.”

Jace picks the stele back up, and spins it between his fingers. He’s a little grateful just for something to do with his hands. It feels a little awkward to grip, but no more so than a paintbrush does, and he figures not everything can come to him naturally. “Where?” 

Alec hesitates, and Jace realises a beat later that it’s because he’s not sure what to do with the book. Leaving it on his own lap while Jace draws from it, and putting it on Jace’s own lap are both awkward alternatives. Jace solves it by plucking the book from Alec, and setting it on his knee. It makes Alec relax, and he sets his right arm a little away from himself. “On my arm. Wherever there’s space.” 

Art may not be in Jace’s wheelhouse, but he’s learnt a few tricks, throughout the years. Sinking into the same stillness that occupies his mind before he plays piano is one such trick; it gets him in the right headspace to cast his eye over what he’s about to draw, tracing it first with his mind’s eye, and then with his finger over the canvas. Except this time the canvas is Alec’s skin, and the soft huff of breath he lets out when Jace traces his finger over his skin seems to travel down to his stomach, coiling together with the butterflies that are already there.

 _Butterflies._ Jace can’t believe it. He’s not someone who has _butterflies_. He traces the air above Alec’s skin with the stele, practising the loops and subtle bend of the Rune as he sternly informs himself that he is Jace Fray, not Simon Lewis. And he gets to work.

———————

** ALEC **

****

****

**taking flight,**

Isabelle is the person, other than Alec himself, who applies Runes to him the most often. With Isabelle, it’s agile and efficient, the kind of efficiency that comes with long familiarity with these Runes on this person for that reason. After that, it’s Max. When Max does it it’s so slowly as to almost be at a stop, a little too hard and almost trembly, with his tongue peeking out as he concentrates. On a handful of occasions it’s been his mom or dad applying his Runes, and in both cases it’s always been done with a quickness that borders on furtiveness. Neither of them feel entirely comfortable with it - his dad, even less so than his mom - for reasons Alec has never really been sure of.

Jace is nothing like any of those people. He takes his time about it, tracing Alec’s skin with his fingers, and then the air just above it with the stele itself, as if mapping it out in his head, first. Alec would’ve guessed he’d be a little like Izzy when she was younger, and just starting out: pressing down too hard, like she was afraid if she didn’t make it hurt, it wasn’t working right. Instead, Jace carves the Deflect rune into him with an achingly careful hand, brushing the thumb of his non-dominant hand against Alec’s wrist as he draws. 

“Is that normal?” 

_No_ Alec wants to say, and bites back the response, self-conscious now that Jace will outright laugh at him if he keeps saying that word, over and over. It gives him a second or two of extra time, enough for the smell of singed flesh to hit his nostrils. That’s probably what Jace means. “Yes.” Alec says instead, quickly, shutting his mouth as soon as he can get away with. It’s just drawing a Rune on him. Something his sister does all the time, something he does himself even more (No, no, don’t think about what else he does to himself). But now it feels almost… erotic. 

Alec opens his eyes as soon as he realises he’s closed them, and takes a breath in through his nose, not wanting Jace to hear, not wanting Jace to be aware of what the feel of his fingers on his skin is doing to him. It’s more than that, too. The burn of his flesh is proof-positive that Jace is one of them. Alec didn’t think he needed that, not really, not after everything he’s seen, but the lightness in his chest that makes him feel like he’s free-falling makes it clear that yes, he really did. 

He watches the progress of Jace drawing the Rune into him in silence. If he says anything, it’ll only be something insipid like ‘you’re good’, which he’s not going to say. Just thinking about it makes him want to cringe away from himself. What if they were _actually_ ‘doing something’? What would Alec say then? ‘This is nice’? It was just as well that no one was ever interested in Alec like that, least of all someone like Jace. He’d probably embarrass himself into being broken up with within two minutes flat. 

When Jace is finished, he pauses, like he’s admiring the way the Rune looks on Alec (like he’s _admiring the first Rune he’s ever drawn_ , Alec has nothing to do with it). “Does it work?” He sounds curious, but coolly so, and Alec is left with the impression that Jace is completely confident it’ll work, just from looking at it. 

“Throw something at me.”

Jace doesn’t ask ‘like what’, just slides up off the bed (and how does he naturally move like running water?) and starts to look over what’s on the desk. Alec knows there’s a dagger there, and he sees Jace’s eyes on, and he’s bracing himself to decide on if he to trust Jace’s aim as well as his Rune so intensely, so quickly, when Jace shows him the paperweight. Something in him twinges at the sight of it, and it must show on his face, because Jace tosses it gently into the air, and puts it back without comment. He’s grateful that he doesn’t have to explain it was a birthday present from his dad, the mixed feelings that go along with it. 

Jace picks a stone pen pot up, empties it across Alec’s desk, and hurls it at him.

Alec brings his newly Runed arm up and it bounces harmlessly off him, ricocheting back at Jace, who catches it with one hand, and gives Alec a glowing-eyed smile makes Alec ready to swallow his own tongue. 

And then his bedroom door opens and Izzy bursts in, wild-eyed and with her whip ready. “Alec?!”

Alec is too baffled to be annoyed at her for not knocking. “Izzy?” 

“You! I was texting you!” 

“I didn’t get anything…” Alec takes his phone out of his pocket, eyes widening when he sees that his battery has dropped _way_ below its normal allowance of 60%. “Jace told me about do not disturb so I put it on when I was helping him with knife throwing, and I must have forgot to take it off…” 

This seems to be the wrong thing to say. Izzy’s eyes dart from Alec, to Jace, “ _You’re_ still here? _What did you do to my brother?_ ”

“ _Isabelle._ ” Alec hisses, completely mortified. He doesn’t think he can bear to even look at Jace right now, but it’s like he can’t help himself; a flick of his eyes and he sees that the smile on Jace’s face has vanished without a trace, replaced by a look of cool loftiness. “He didn’t _do_ anything to me.”

“You never would’ve put on do not disturb before!” She rounds on Jace again, eyes flashing, brandishing her whip in a manner that bypassed ‘threatening’ and went straight to ‘raining blood.’ “ _What are you._ ”

“He’s a Shadowhunter!” Alec bursts in, because this is going _way_ too far. He shows her his forearm, with the slightly blurry Deflect Rune freshly applied. “He did this. And he lit up a Witchlight. And you need to be _quiet_ because Hodge can’t know about him, _nobody can_ , because he wants to train but he can’t just _give up his family_ anymore than I could give up you and Max.”

For a singular, shining moment, there is total silence.

“Well, this has been… illuminating.” Jace drawls, backing away from Alec’s desk, and shrugging with a single shoulder. “But I should get getting home anyway.”

“You realise I brought you here _six hours_ ago.” Isabelle says, because apparently Alec’s sister _can not_ help herself. 

“And then you went to the bathroom for five hours and fifty minutes.” Jace says smoothly, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you should really rethink your diet. More roughage.” 

Alec is treated to the sight of his sister completely speechless, which slightly makes up for the way Jace slips past him without so much as another look. “See you around, Alec. Lightwood… let’s give it a few weeks.”

Izzy turns to Alec as soon as Jace has disappeared out the door. “Alec, _tell me_ you got his number.”

Sheer disbelief mingles with annoyance. “Not _everyone_ wants to date you, Isabelle.”

“Not for me, you doofus! For _you_. Anyway,” Isabelle continues, which gives Alec at least a few seconds to stop blinking, “He’s still into one of us, so the Lightwood charm and cheekbones combination remains unparallelled.”

Alec has to blink a few more times to get the slightly stunned look off his face. “He’s not _into_ me.” 

“He was here for six hours! I had to chase him across _four_ buildings to even get him through the door.”

“You _chased_ him across-”

“Not important.” Isabelle cuts him off with a wave of her hand, freshly manicured. “Six hours, Alec. That means something… Even if it’s just that he wants to be friends.”

“It couldn’t be anything to do with him finding out he’s part of a elite warrior race that I’m also part of.” Alec says, finding some small comfort in the dryness of his tone. 

He wishes that Izzy would stop going on about it, if only so it didn’t bring his own insecurities so far up to the surface. Jace _had_ stayed for six hours, he _had_ said ‘see you around’ to Alec… but he’d also left without a backwards glance, without any way to contact him. He remembers, with no small amount of alarm, that Jace _had_ said ‘what makes you think you’ll get my number?’ He’d _said_ that, straight up, and Alec had been stupid enough to think he was joking… 

“No.” Izzy says firmly, and drops onto Alec’s desk chair with a gracelessness he’s the only person who gets to see. “He couldn’t care less about anything I could tell him about maybe being a Shadowhunter. Even when I showed him our truly fantastic sword collection, he just wanted me to leave him alone so he could figure it out himself. It’s definitely you he likes.”

This pulls Alec up short. Jace had been impatient at times, and was almost as bad for Izzy as interrupting him, but he’d also listened attentively, respected Alec’s opinion and seemed genuinely interested in what Alec had to tell him. They’d joked together, too, and not in the barbed way he’d just seen between him and Izzy. “Maybe you’re right.” Alec said finally, brow furrowed.

Izzy smiles at him hugely, ands hold up a piece of his stationary with a phone number running across it in flowing script. “I know I am.”

———————

** JACE **

****

****

**& everything has changed.**

“I covered for you.” Clary says, as Jace flops down on the beanbag chair Lewis won’t let her get rid of because he waits - fruitlessly - for the day that Jace can’t get in out with zero trouble. She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, working with what can only be coloured charcoals; nothing else smudges her fingers and her face the same way. “But I wasn’t happy about the lack of warning when you were gone for half the day, so your cover story is you caved to pressure and re-joined Flamingo Party, now named One True Oreo. Simon already promised Mom and Luke tickets to your welcome back concert.”

“I dislike your evil, but I can respect it.” Jace says, and checks his phone in a faux-casual gesture for any messages from the unknown number he actually wants to hear from. “One gig and then I hit it and quit it.”

“Always a good time when the two of you argue about whose the Frontman while on stage.” Clary says mildly, and despite her tone, Jace knows she’s not joking. The last time he and Lewis were on stage together, she inked it into a series of comic book panels to commemorate it. “Come and have a look?” 

Jace easily pulls himself out of the beanbag chair, and hangs over the back of his sister’s bed to cast judgement on her watercolour. It’s the picture he took of Isabelle Lightwood earlier, but she’s re-imagined in glorious bursts of colour as Wonder Woman. Behind her is Brooklyn Bridge, arching into the island of Themyscira. “I was thinking of giving it to Simon as a birthday present, but I’m not sure if that’s too creepy, if you’re going to be seeing her and her brother again.”

His phone buzzes with another burst of texts, but a quick glance shows it’s the wrong Lightwood sibling. He goes to slide it into Clary’s dock to charge, but she snatches it from him, a look of amusement taking over her face as she reads over the texts. “She’s already giving you the shovel talk?”

“She crazy.”

“Hmmm. Oh! Is this the glowy stone you were talking about? Let me see…”

———————

**BONUS: SOME OF THE TEXTS SENT DURING THE MAKING OF THIS STORY:**

  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
